Send us your photos and we’ll post them here in our gallery.

This image was shared by NWNJBA member Jim McCauley. It was a basketball sized swarm located approximately 10ft up in a tree. It comes with an interesting story about the capture.

Jim put the swarm in a deep hive body and lowered it to the ground. He was using an extension ladder in the process. The bees subsequently exited the box and he had to do it again. The second time was heading in the same direction when it was noticed that a number of bees were fanning on the sidebars of the extension ladder.

We took the ladder and shook the bees on it into a spare outer cover and lo and behold the queen was inside one of the hollow spaces for the top rung! Once she was in the box, everything settled down and the colony was provided a good home.

We’ve created a dedicated site to report the New Jersey swarm report data. Here we’ll be reporting throughout the swarm season results, news, information, and features concerning beekeeping swarm activity in the Garden State.

As we grow we’ll be…

– Reporting results with the swarm count, swarm plot map, and trend charts.
– Sharing photos and videos that have been shared with us.
– Providing information about swarm prevention and insights on how to capture swarms.

We’ll be posting 2014 results in the coming days and throughout 2014 so bookmark our page and check back often.

We’re getting reports of swarms kicking off as of this week. It’s been quiet so far in 2014 but with the cold weather receding and the significant nectar flow and blossoming plants the time is ripe for a strong start to the swarm season.